Conscious choices

In every moment of our life we make choices. Left or right. A or B. Do something or do nothing.  Even the choice between fight, flight or freeze.

But the vast majority of these decisions, we don’t even realise we are making.

You may have heard of the concept of making conscious choices in relation to environmental choices, such as making a conscious choice to avoid companies reliant on plastic packaging, or in relation to eating, so being conscious of what we grab out the fridge in passing.  But these aren’t the only areas of our lives where we could do with being more conscious of our choices.

Take a moment to consider an area of your life that currently feels challenging.  This could be work, or family life, or the balance between them, or something else completely.  Now consider how you think and react to trying to make change in that part of your life.  How often do you find yourself looking at this area of your life and thinking ‘I must…’ or ‘I have to…’ or ‘I need to…’ or even ‘I can’t...’?  And when you see those statements that you tell yourself, ask yourself this question - are they the truth?

I have to…

Several years ago for me life was feeling hard.  Balancing a busy actuarial career with having two very young boys was extremely challenging and, at that point in time, totally unfulfilling.  I just wanted a way out but being the family breadwinner made that feel impossible.  I was firmly stuck in victim-mode - I must confess, my coach at the time must have got rather sick of hearing about how unfair it all was!  We would discuss my options and ambitions and dreams but it always came back to the same statement.  “I have to keep doing this job, I don’t have any choice”.  Then one day she called me on it:

“Don’t you?”

“Of course I don’t!  If I don’t work we wouldn’t be able to afford the house, or the car or so many other things!”

“But you could choose to leave.  Instead you choose to stay because you are prioritising the house, and the car, and everything else more”

Well that stopped me in my tracks!  What she helped me to realise was that I was unconsciously prioritising our financial security above my own joy and fulfilment.  Becoming aware of the choice I was making had a significant impact.  Bringing awareness to my choice shifted my view on my life completely.  In the end, I chose to continue as things were then, to maintain our financial security but I also chose to consciously look at what my options were to improve my sense of fulfilment in my work.  Outwardly, nothing really changed, but my thought processes around it were transformed and the victim-ness of it disappeared overnight.

Unconscious influences

Understanding the unconscious influences on the choices you are making is a key part of the coaching work I do with my clients.  Bringing awareness to these can have a hugely powerful impact in a short space of time.

So what might these unconscious influences be?:

1. Values - your values are simply the things that are most important to you.  Not physical practical things but the concepts that you value most in life.  So in my own example above, having our house was not the value, instead financial security was a key value for me at that point in time and more important to me than fulfilment.  Your values are a key driver for how you show up in the world.
2. Beliefs - your unconscious beliefs about yourself, especially limiting beliefs, will drive your choices.  For example, if you believe ‘I cannot be a mother and have a successful career’, it may not even occur to you to consider the amazing promotion opportunity that arises because your unconscious mind has chosen to look past it before you’ve consciously considered it.
3. Your state - in the short term, your physical, mental and spiritual state will affect the choices you make.  I, for one, know that my choices are definitely different when I’ve not had enough sleep for example!  Understanding what you need to be in a good state to make positive choices is another key area I work on with clients, it’s simple but hugely transformational.

In my posts over the next couple of days I’m going to encourage you to dig deeper into the choices you are making in one area of your life to explore these influences and to open up to making more conscious choices. 

For today, I would encourage you to bring awareness to the choices you are making.  Are you consciously choosing to move towards what you want in your life?  Or are you running on autopilot?